Brown fat? Never heard of it. At least until last week. Then I had to find out what it was all about. Turns out brown fat, is actually brown! Eww. That’s because the cells in brown fat are rich in iron, hence the colour. Now the big breakthrough is there’s brown fat in adults. Previously, it was thought brown fat just existed in babies. It served to keep them warm. Brown fat is what doctors call “metabolically active.” That means it burns energy and releases heat, keeping baby warm. Now, researchers have discovered it exists in adults too. It’s generally found between the shoulder blades and in the neck area. And it pretty much functions the same way.
Not all adults have brown fat, it’s more common in people who are lean – which is why there’s likely some connection there. It’s less common in people who are overweight. But whether you have brown fat is basically genetic. However, researchers are looking into whether they can make white fat cells act like brown fat cells.
U of C medical professor Dr. David Lau says, “there are means and ways to convert white fat into brown fat, at least we know this in animals and in the lab. We have ways to fool cells and get white fat cells to become brown fat cells in function. But this is quite a few years away.”
This discovery could help treat obesity some day in the future. In the meantime, Dr. Lau says eat less and exercise more. It’s a proven formula that works.
Three studies have been published on brown fat in the prestigious medical journal the New England Journal of Medicine. For more info you can check out the website and at least read the abstracts.